


Post Mortem

by TheLongDefeat



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/M, One Shot, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, The Force Ships It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22283035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLongDefeat/pseuds/TheLongDefeat
Summary: In her mind’s eye, they are always together, nearer than twins; he is the space between the beats of her heart; he is the second breath of air.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey
Comments: 2
Kudos: 34





	Post Mortem

**Author's Note:**

> Hope is faith holding its hand out in the dark.  
> \- George Iles

She imagines what it would have been like, a life with him: she always envisions them on Jakku, even though it wouldn’t have been, of course, not in any version of reality. Realistically he would have grown up to be a senator, and she would have been - well - a Palpatine. They would have been leaders, rulers. Maybe their parents would have set them up.

But in her mind’s eye, it is only her and him, sand-whipped and sorry after the hot day scavenging from an AT-AT. His hair, slick with sweat, blown wild in the wind. Her palm pressed to his chest. She doesn’t imagine his voice - it never is right in her head, never quite the warbling depth of the real him, that burnt film sound which sent shivers down to her toes. 

In her mind’s eye, they are always together, nearer than twins; he is the space between the beats of her heart; he is the second breath of air. 

Lying on her bunk in her own private quarters, no longer in the Resistance because the Resistance was disbanded, Rey dreams of the man she loved.

~*~   
  


She finds holos of him from when he was small. By the time she died Leia Organa had no relatives and no heirs, so her things became property of the Republic, part of an archive commemorating the second Great Galactic War. Rey shrugs off the curious eyes of the creature manning the front desk, wanders the high shelves for many hours. Finds the Solo family archives - little notes between husband and wife, well wishes to their baby as they travel the galaxy without him. Private pieces of their life. Ben is a strange and solemn child, never smiling, reluctantly waving to the recorder at his nurse’s behest. She doesn’t recognize the plump apple cheeks or the button nose or the wispy hair, but those eyes she would know anywhere, in any galaxy - those eyes, those eyes, those eyes.

~*~

As the only Jedi in existence, she is afforded certain privileges and responsibilities. She is in a bar on Tokodana forgetting old memories of the War in the bottom of her bottles when a green-skinned trader nudges her elbow. “A message for you, girl.”

Rey stares into liquid grey eyes without comprehension. “I know no one on this planet anymore.”

The trader points a nubbled fingers towards the rear exit, where Rey catches a whip of a cape disappearing behind the door. “He says you are one to know - you are of the Old Magicks, and practice the Ancient Craft. He says there is a creature living in the wastes that is of the Old Magicks. A wounded beast. The pain of its wounds are like a void, bending in-like, and the planet is beginning to collapse.”

Rey pushes away her drink, facing the trader. “A beast, you say? What planet is this?”

“A desert planet, nearly nowhere: Tatooine.”

~*~

An adventure: perhaps what she needs. The universe has sent her a sign, and she will follow it; such is her burden in life. Rey fires up her ship, logging onto her comm device to map out her route. Tabs through six or seven unopened holovids from Finn before she reaches the map. 

The journey is brief and uneventful. She lands at dusk, and stepping out onto the sand is almost like coming home. It is still hot under her feet even though the sun has relented behind the smooth slopes of the dunes in the far distance. She notices the heat.

She notices also the presence of the Force.

It pulls like a magnet: that old familiar ache. She walks for hours in the black darkness of the desert, only the sound of the low wind hissing against the sands for company. She does not weary, she does not rest. She marches to the drumbeat of her heart against her ribs. She does not see the hut - it is too dark - but she feels it, a growing hum against her spirit.

“I have dreamed of this,” she says, even before he turns on the exterior lamp, even before she knows because she already  _ knows _ . “I thought they were just wishes - I thought it was only a dream.”

She watches his throat working against his words. His skin is not as pale as it once was, but his mouth twists down in that familiar regret, and his eyes still blaze with sorrow. “I hoped you wouldn’t find me.”

His voice: inkwell dark spilling out into the cooling air between them. Dripping between her splayed fingers. She presses her palm to his chest, and she had never dreamed the warmth of his skin or the thump of his heart or the flare of his breath. “I love you,” she says, trying not to weep.

He scuffs one boot against her shoe, raises his hand to wrap loosely around her wrist. His shivery smile is the only thing she can see. “I know,” he says. 


End file.
